Muaddib

You know I saw Disney's Hercules last year. Hadn't seen it as a kid. Lots of bad mythology in that movie, but it all follows the pop culture tropes and common understandings. Zeus is a great father and husband because he's the king, and cause he looks like Yahweh. Hades is a bitter scheming homosexual because of Lucifer.

But the worst part of the movie was a five second joke about Narcissus. His death is turned into a punchline. And he's drawn as a full grown man, making kissy lips into a mirror. You want to hear the version from actual mythology?

Narcissus, who according to Ovid was sixteen, was repeatedly proposed marriage by this guy, Ameinias. He wouldn't take no for an answer. Narcissus just wanted to go out into the woods and be alone and hunt, but Ameinias kept bothering him. So Narcissus told Ameinias to go kill himself. If I were a teenage boy being sexually harassed? I'd do that too. Perfectly normal reaction.

But Ameinias actually does it. And as he's stabbing himself, he prays. He wants Narcissus to suffer, too. He says "Though he should love, let him not have what he loves". And Nemesis answers his prayer. Nemesis is the goddess in charge of punishing mortals for hubris. For acting like they're the equals of the gods. Why would Nemesis punish someone for being mean to a sex pest? Well, as near as I can tell, the Greek cultural interpretation of asexuality/aromanticism is that it's a form of selfishness. They thought Narcissus was avoiding marriage because he wanted to keep his body to himself, out of arrogance. That's what they thought all asexuals were.

So Nemesis decides to punish Narcissus, and SHE makes him fall in love with his reflection. She turns him into what you call a "n*rcissist", as a punishment for being asexual.

Oh, and by the way? Narcissus was born because his mother was raped. Her name was Liriope. The rapist's name was Cephissus. Yeah, if I were carrying intergenerational rape trauma, I'd get pretty fucking angry about sexual harassment too.

This is your history.

Okay here's a peer reviewed study on chicken's intelligence, emotions, understanding, and social bonds. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-1064-4

And a quote from Melissa Caughey

As a hen nears the end of her natural life, she often goes off and finds a quiet place away from the rest of the flock. During this time, the other members of the flock visit, one by one or a couple at a time. To me, they seem sad. They “chat” through verbalizations and body language. They hang their heads low to get on eye level with the dying chicken. Their coos are quiet, soft mutterings that you have to lean into to hear — chicken whispers. They move slowly and cautiously, considerate of disrupting their flock member. Some linger, while others potter around. Some sit with the dying chicken. Some keep returning. I watched some hens try to motivate Tilly by carefully scratching in the coop’s pine shavings right in front of her, as if to say “Get up, please.”
However, once they have made their peace, they leave and do not turn back. The dying chicken passes alone. The others have returned to doing what the flock does: foraging, scratching, dust bathing, and such. Life goes on.
Still, for days after a hen dies, it is not uncommon for those who were closest to her to mourn the loss of their friend. From the safety of the coop, they call out, using the same sound that means “Where are you?” when they are free-ranging in the yard and can’t find a missing member of the flock. A grieving hen avoids interacting with the flock and sits in a corner with puffed-up feathers like a chicken that feels ill.
Some mourn only temporarily, but others never seem to recover from the loss of a flockmate. It is not uncommon for a hen that was close to the departed to suddenly pass unexpectedly, for reasons unknown. She seems to slowly lose her zest for life. Often, of course, she and the deceased hen were close in age and grew up together. I believe chickens can indeed die from broken hearts or, more specifically, from the stress and depression that follow a loss.

You're a jerk. Have some empathy. How the fuck can you hear of a living being pecking itself to death in its own shit and think "dumb bird"?

WHY is it insulting to call someone a Greek asexual boy?

Because people spent thousands of years hating that teenage boy for not putting out.

The word has negative connotations today. It's an insult.

It's a thinking being.

Chickens in factory farms often have to be debeaked, because the stress of being packed in close quarters with hundreds of other chickens, in a tiny cage, standing in its own shit, leads to pecking at other chickens through the bars and autocannibalism. Happy chickens don't eat themselves alive. You know what self harm means in humans. It means the same thing in chickens. That eating yourself alive is better than living in this environment.

I'm afraid that no matter what you say, Isaac Bashevis Singer has already said the following:

“In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.”

“As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour towards creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right.”

“As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.”

He has said that the cruelty he experienced at the hands of the Nazis is the same cruelty meat-eaters inflict upon animals. Do you not think he has that right, to interpret his own experiences? Would you descend from heaven to tell him the meaning of the violence he suffered, because you know it better than he? He doesn't think it's gross, he thinks it's true, and I trust him better than you, unless you tell me right now you were in a German concentration camp in 1945.

Why can't you just use another word?

Yes, and that's the problem with slavery of humans, too. It treats humans the way humanity treats animals. And nobody should be made to endure that kind of suffering.

What makes animals unworthy of decency? Intelligence? Strength? Divine birthright of species? All distinctions drawn between human and animal which aim to excuse slavery are fascist in nature. Singer is right. The only excuses we have for eating meat are the same excuses the Nazis used for the holocaust. Humanity has not grown since 1945. They have not abandoned slavery, nor fascism. As Singer says, every meat eater is a Nazi.

Even the little Hitler Youths in schools being fed meatloaf. What society does to children to indoctrinate them into slave-eating is disgusting. Put blood on their hands, so that without an iron will, they will never be able to accept the truth of what they have done, lest they be overcome with guilt for their crimes. It reminds me of the indoctrination rituals used by criminal gangs, where you have to commit a crime to be accepted. It's no wonder all these adult Nazis can't accept that slavery is wrong.

Well let's ask Jewish holocaust survivor, Isaac Bashevis Singer, what he thinks.

What do they know-all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world - about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.

He says people who eat meat are Nazis. I think I trust the opinion of this Jewish holocaust survivor on this matter. He makes a pretty good point. Everyone who eats meat is a Nazi, from the animals' point of view. And I agree with the animals.

I'm asexual, and I'm not comfortable with you using a word that has been used to attack other asexuals and aromatics for thousands of years. Not to mention the way you're implicitly supporting pedophilia. If you didn't know, then it would be forgivable, but you know now, and you still choose to use the aphobic, pedophilic word. So I think something is flawed in your ability to tell right from wrong, and in your ability to exercise kindness.

I disagree

Good. Running a meat restaurant is a monstrous act. No kind person would operate a corpse parlour stuffed with the carcasses of slaves, for people to consume in exchange for money. The disease is forcing her to be a better person.